1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a timer module and to a method for testing output signals of a timer module.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is customary in safety-critical applications, for example, for control units in the automotive sector, for various output signals and values to be redundantly calculated or generated and subsequently compared. This allows erroneous signals and values to be detected, and, if indicated, to be rejected or also corrected. To this end, the data are calculated by bytes or words, and stored, before the comparison is performed.
The German Patent Application DE 10 2004 051 992 A1 describes activating a comparison by switching two processing units to a comparison mode. For such a comparison, clock cycle information can be supplied along with the data to permit a synchronous allocation of the data. If a synchronous comparison is to take place immediately, the one processing unit can be stopped by a stop signal until synchronization is reached, or the generated data are mutually synchronized by subsequent FIFO memory units.